The Two Lives of Lydia Bird - Josie Silver Page 0,24
first place down on the table. Luckily for him, he’ll never know what I mean.
‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ he says. ‘Promise me you won’t go mad.’
‘I can’t promise,’ I say. ‘Not until I know what it is.’
He butters his toast as he shakes his head. ‘Uh-uh. Promise first.’
That’s so Freddie. ‘Fine,’ I relent. ‘I promise not to go mad.’
He’s instantly wreathed in smiles. ‘I booked our honeymoon.’
My heart lifts with joy and then sinks because it’s entirely possible I won’t be able to come back here this time next year; all of this could stop tomorrow. I actually feel it tumble, slow-motion somersaulting behind my breastbone.
‘You did?’
He looks so pleased with himself. He’s bursting out of his skin to tell me. ‘Do you want it to be a surprise?’
I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak. I hope he takes the sheen of tears in my eyes as joy.
‘Where are we going?’
He pauses as if he’s seriously considering not telling me, but then he can’t keep the words in. ‘New York!’
Ah, of course we are. I’ve always wanted to go to New York. I’ve seen every episode of Friends, I want to be bezzies with Carrie Bradshaw, and I long to walk barefoot in Central Park. I don’t even chastise him about the cost, because in my head we’re already on the ferry to Staten Island. It’s ridiculously, perfectly us.
‘You couldn’t have got it more right,’ I say, reaching out across the table for his hand. ‘Don’t tell me any more. Let me daydream a while.’
He rubs his thumb over my knuckles. ‘You’re going to love it, Lyds.’
I have no doubt whatsoever. I feel like I’m about to cry, so I change the subject.
‘So what shall we do this afternoon?’
‘You mean it wasn’t girl code for sex?’ He looks hangdog, and then laughs. ‘We’re going to the movies, remember?’ he says, reminding me of a plan I’ve no knowledge of. ‘I’m going to snog your face off on the back row.’
‘Snog?’ I laugh. ‘No one says that any more.’
He reaches across the table and stabs my egg yolk. ‘I do. Hurry up, film starts at half one.’
‘Movies it is then,’ I say. It’s Bank Holiday Monday, I’m with Freddie, and we’re fine. Better than fine: we’re how we used to be, him and me against the world. I’m not even mad with him for the egg yolk thing, even though he always does it just to get a rise out of me. We’re going to go to the movies and snog like schoolkids on the back row. We’re going to make hay while the sun shines.
Sunday 27 May
I’m sitting on the kitchen floor, my sweat-soaked back pressed against the cupboard, the bottle of pills clutched tight in my still-shaking hand. I accidentally sent them flying off the countertop a few minutes ago, and then scrambled around on the floor like an addict, grabbing for them before they slipped through the cracks. I got a painful splinter in my index finger for my trouble, but all that mattered in those panicky seconds was ensuring that every last one of the remaining tablets went safely back where they should be.
I’ve visited Freddie for the last six days in a row, and I’m utterly exhausted, as if I’ve been running marathons in my sleep. I dully acknowledge that this cannot go on. It’s not just the physical toll; there is a steep mental price to pay too. My waking hours have become my waiting hours, filled with impatience and anticipation, edged with sickly fear that it may not happen next time, that I might never again experience the rush. It’s impossible to explain how it feels to be there. There was a painting in the National Gallery when Elle and I visited a couple of years ago, an Australian landscape by an artist whose name I can’t quite bring to mind. It isn’t one of the most well-known pieces nor the most spectacular, but there was something about the clarity of colour and the intense quality of the light that held my attention more than any other. My sleeping world is there amongst the brush strokes and pigments of that painting; alive and bold and spellbinding. Addictive.
I hold my head in my hands, bereft because the incident with the pills just now has forced me to acknowledge the truth that’s been lurking just beneath the surface for the last couple of days: I’m putting myself in real danger here.